According to Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, Henry Paulson warned that things would turn worse than the Depression if he didn’t get his $700 billion to buy toxic assets, and then changed his tune as soon as he had the money. Here is an exchange (including the audio) between Inhofe and a radio interviewer:

Pat Campbell: “Somebody in D.C. was feeding you guys quite a story prior to the bailout, a story that if we didn’t do this we were going to see something on the scale of the Depression, there were people that were talking about martial law being instituted, civil unrest….who was feeding you guys this stuff? Because clearly it worked on [Oklahoma Congressman John] Sullivan, clearly it worked on [Oklahoma Senator Tom] Coburn, it didn’t work on you.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe: “That was Henry Paulson. We had a conference call early on, it was on a Friday I think — a week and half before the vote on Oct. 1. So it would have been the middle … what was it — the 19th of September, we had a conference call. In this conference call — and I guess there’s no reason for me not to repeat what he said, but he painted this picture you just described. He said, ‘This is serious. This is the most serious thing that we faced. This is going to be far worse than the Great Depression in the 30s’ — and all these things, he was very descriptive — if we didn’t buy out these toxic assets, which he abandoned the day after he got the money.”